Beacons
by supermassive ego
Summary: It's funny how history repeats itself. ((contains major spoilers for YN and TWEWY))


Through the Composer's eyes, Shibuya is a field of flickering lights. These flickering lights are souls. Some are dull, some are bright. Time is no longer a burden of His; however, staring at the same field of the same candlelight day-in and day-out can't help but plague him with a feeling of ennui, the kind of ennui only mortals tend to fear. For a place full-to-bursting with so many people, there isn't much inspiration to be found there.

1985. Again, for a being above the concept of time, it seems awfully long ago for Him. It's retained its asphalt-jungle look throughout the years, only in more recent times there's the constant glare of neon signs and gigantic backlit billboards to add a splash of colour. The past, in comparison, is much more subdued. The Composer doesn't waste his time pottering around in His RG form too much, as the slender frame and sickly pallor of Yoshiya Kiryu tend to limit His abilities far more than He'd like, but He's occasionally taken up wanders, tangents, and explored His own creation a little. The attentive ones pin Yoshiya, affectionately referred to as Joshua, down as the wandering type, the loner, and they aren't mistaken. When you're essentially the god of all creation within this area, on several planes of reality, it desensitises you to many things. Joshua doesn't even spare a look for the beggars at his feet as he walks, he ignores the love confessions he's gotten from smitten teenage girls (and often boys) he's happened upon in ramen establishments. Human life is too short, too fragile, for those things to be of any real worth.

Not until he meets Madotsuki.

A plain-looking girl. Brown hair, pulled into messy plaits. A second-hand jumper with a window design, a purple skirt, loose black socks and red shoes that are too small for her. Heavy-lidded eyes that rarely open.

Technically, the two never meet. The mere acknowledgement of her by Him is by sheer happenstance- she's awfully easy to miss all the way up in that sky-rise apartment block next to the station. Yet at the same time, she isn't. Madotsuki's soul is unlike any the Composer has ever seen. Given its position, it's like a beacon over the city, almost. If everyone below Madotsuki is a candle-flame, Madotsuki is a hearth. Her heart and mind are filled to the brim with Imagination, inspiration. Through the Composer's eyes, it's dazzling to behold.

There's one problem, however, and it's that while Madotsuki's soul is rife with Inspiration rivalling His own, there's something about her emotion. Specifically, it's non-existent. It doesn't emerge once during her discovery. It's not Mitsuki Konishi's kind of cold, calculating emotionlessness, neither is it His own apathy. He's noticed she spends nearly all her time asleep, which is irritating- there have been numerous disputes with Composers of other regions over the issue of sleep, dreams and the placement of the soul, and it's been speculated for the time being that they pretty much go wherever the hell they want. It's only rarely she wakes up, and her soul dulls when she awakens. It's no wonder- He doesn't have to employ His omniscience in order to know that playing the same video game over and over and occasionally visiting the balcony isn't in the least bit inspiring. But she doesn't seem to want to leave.

They have a sort of game of chase going on. She falls asleep and wanders off to another plane, he tries to follow. There are things about that girl he needs to figure out. Specifically, where does she even get all that Imagination from? Who is Madotsuki? Where are her parents, friends, neighbours? She's definitely human, so how can she jump planes so freely? The trace she leaves behind is the only way He knows how to find her. They aren't dreams, although she seems to think they are, judging by the dream diary on her bedside desk. Obviously, she doesn't know about the science of dimensions and planes, and it's understandable, considering she only seems to be about thirteen years old, at the maximum. Or maybe older, considering her affinity for stabbing anything that threatens her in the slightest, although He wouldn't be surprised if she had a longer lasting damage. He's walked past numerous bloody corpses of otherwordly things- faceless women, neon creatures, spacemen- but by the next time He sees them, they're back again. Really, the casualties in the other planes depend on Madotsuki's mood. But the damage she does never lasts, because she's not a part of those dimensions, and to them she's not real. And it wouldn't surprise Him to learn that the knife she uses is just one of her hallucinations, either.

It feels as if she isn't real in the RG, either. A few times, Joshua Kiryu has headed up to the apartment block, rang the doorbell. No answer. He's pretended to be an interested university student looking for a cheap flat to live in- "by any chance, is this apartment occupied? I need somewhere to live.". Nobody knows. He's knocked on the door, sent letters, but still nothing. And she's not in the UG.

Soon, however, she is.

To this day, the Composer considers giving up on their game of interdimensional cat and mouse to be one of His biggest mistakes. He still remembers the day- or was it night?- He looked into Shibuya, and the beacon was no longer there. Just police tape around the body of a teenage girl, a blood stain, and no noticeable interest. The case is concluded in record time. It's not a murder, it's a suicide, she's a tenant in one of the flats and she threw herself off the balcony. Nobody survives a fall that great. And there's no funeral, because nobody knows who Madotsuki is. Not even the Composer Himself.

The Composer tells Himself not to get too attached to humans. They die too easily. He even has to tell Megumi Kitaniji to ensure He doesn't twist the next Reaper's Game in Madotsuki's favour, and it's dreadfully embarrassing. What surpasses that, though, is when she gets Erased on her first day. Being a shut-in doesn't help your social skills. And going without a partner in the Reaper's Game is essentially a one-way road to Erasure. The Composer almost wishes He didn't have to oversee her true final moments. Seeing those heavy eyelids open again to confusion and close again to melt into static- almost too much to bear. Almost.

And after the eradication of possibly the brightest soul in Shibuya, He can't help but notice the decline it falls into. The light of the souls and the bleakness of the city are interchanged, and soon Shibuya is a slew of grey people trudging around a neon rose garden. Something has to be done.

Sometime, somewhere, in yet another apartment block, He meets Neku Sakuraba.

Neku Sakuraba is, quite simply, the prime example of human trash. He's anti-social, self-absorbed, ignorant, and his fashion sense is enough to make the god want to destroy all of Shibuya, just to absolve His eyes of the one fatuous visual crime that was Neku's hair and clothing. Orange with purple? He's either colourblind or just an uncultured cretin, the Reapers think.

There is one saving grace to Sakuraba, however, and it's that the Imagination he possesses quite possibly rivals Madotsuki's. Something about shut-ins, maybe. But unlike Madotsuki, Neku is much more expressive of his hatred of the outside world, and he isn't quite so annoying with the interdimensional goose chase. Thankfully, the full extent of Neku's otherwordly exploration is within his oversized headphones- although not to say it isn't an extreme problem. Shibuya is the darkest it's ever been since 1985, and at this rate Neku's Imagination is the only thing keeping the Composer's vision clear. He can't afford to have Neku go the same way as Madotsuki.

So He devises a plan.

Occasionally, He wonders what it's like for Neku, being the pivotal part of this plan. It all depends on whether he's able to snap out of his self-indulgence and save Shibuya, after all. And some people just aren't cut out for such massive personal development within the space of three weeks. Neku certainly doesn't seem the type. But the Composer would like to think there's one final scrap of hope before Shibuya goes to the dogs. There's no point in sustaining such a city.

It's funny how history repeats itself. It's funny how Neku's corpse, punctuated by a bullet hole directly through his already-empty heart, falls similarly to Madotsuki's. It's funny how the blood stain in Udagawa looks similar to the one outside the apartment block, decades ago.

Welcome to the Reaper's Game.


End file.
